With the rules for the 2024 edition of the Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook out in the wild, theory crafters and min-maxers are trying to work out which class has come out on top this edition, and which is at the bottom of the heap. Judging by discussions on Reddit, there’s no consensus for the best class overall, but the Rogue is roundly regarded as the worst.
We’ll preface this by saying that you can’t ever judge the DnD classes in a vacuum, independent of the campaign that they’re being used in. The combat prowess of every class depends very much on the environment it is fighting in, the enemy it is facing, and the style of DnD campaign the DM is running.
But it’s still possible to calculate the raw damage output for every class, and we noted in our DnD 2024 Player’s Handbook review that the DnD 2024 Rogue seems to be the least impressive of the newly tuned-up classes. Redditors in the r/OneDnD subreddit seem to agree, as the most upvoted response to the question “What is the new strongest/weakest class?” puts the Rogue in last place.
Alas, poor Rogue. Most of its subclasses lack magic, always a weak starting point, and something that the new Player’s Handbook seems to tacitly admit in the massive tune-ups to the Fighter, Monk, and Barbarian.
Its level 5 ability, Cunning Strike, lets it reduce the damage from a sneak attack to inflict a status effect onto a target. However, these allow the target a saving throw, often the Constitution save, usually a strong save for the high-HP enemies you want to disable with debuffs.
There are some nice new features for the Rogue, like the new DnD Weapon Mastery system that lets it Vex targets for easy advantage on attack rolls, or Nick them so it can make extra attacks as a free action instead of a bonus action.
The thing is, every other class has had an even bigger glow-up. The DnD 2024 Monk is particularly potent compared to the 2014 version, and while reactions to previews of the DnD 2024 Ranger were negative, it turns out it’s pretty good now as well.
As we said at the start, there’s more to how a character performs than their DnD race, class, and stat block, and the Rogue has many fun abilities to use outside combat. And who knows what’s coming on the DnD release schedule? To keep up to date with DnD news, and be alerted when some broken new build arrives to throw the Rogue out of the shadows, make sure to follow Wargamer on Google News.
Source: Wargamer
